In recent weeks, Republicans have been attacking President Obama for taking too long to settle on a strategy for the war in Afghanistan. The charge has been led by Vice President Cheney, who accused Obama of “dithering” and endangering U.S. troops:

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Tonight in his prime-time address to the nation, Obama ordered the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and said that the U.S. would begin withdrawing in 18 months. He also pointed out that none of the options put before him were set to occur before 2010, so his review process did not result in any endangerment of U.S. troops — a statement that seemed to be a direct response to criticisms such as Cheney’s:

As your Commander-in-Chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined, and worthy of your service. That is why, after the Afghan voting was completed, I insisted on a thorough review of our strategy.

Let me be clear: there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war. Instead, the review has allowed me ask the hard questions, and to explore all of the different options along with my national security team, our military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and with our key partners.

Given the stakes involved, I owed the American people — and our troops — no less.

Watch it:

On a Republican National Committee conference call today, former Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Den Senor accused President Obama of “throwing a bone to the left” by “continuing to blame the policies of the Bush administration” for the current situation in Afghanistan.

Saying he was “pleasantly surprised” that President Obama had apparently decided to commit more forces to Afghanistan (something Obama had, of course, promised to do as a candidate) Senor said the president needed to level with the American people about the situation in Afghanistan. “It’s critically important that the president make clear that this is not the last speech on this subject, but the first of many.”

Asked whether the charge by Dick Cheney and other conservatives that the president was “dithering” on Afghanistan now seems silly because of Obama’s presumed decision to escalate the U.S. commitment there, Senor acknowledged that Obama “was presented with a bunch of really bad options, and he picked one that was least bad,” but added:

[President Obama] is, by doing this, challenging the left of his party. I think that’s why you see these comments he’s making continuing to blame the policies of the Bush administration in Afghanistan, which is as much about throwing a bone to the left as it is about anything.

Part of leveling with the American people about the situation in Afghanistan is talking honestly about why we’re still there after eight years. And that involves discussing the poor policy choices of the previous president. I don’t think it’s even controversial any more to point out that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan was disastrously mismanaged by the Bush administration. The failure to catch or kill Osama bin Laden when there was an opportunity, the failure to deliver on promised reconstruction aid, and the decision to divert troops and materiel to Iraq created a huge mess that President Obama must now devote significant resources and attention — and a substantial portion of his presidency — to cleaning up. There’s no reason why the American people, and the former Bush administration officials responsible, shouldn’t be reminded of this at every opportunity.

The anti-immigrant group American for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) was crushed to hear Dobbs say that he supports a path to legalization for undocumented workers in an interview on Telemundo late last month after all the years he dedicated to railing on “amnesty.” Yesterday, Dobbs brought ALIPAC president William Gheen on his radio show and bemusingly proclaimed that his Telemundo interview was not a flip-flop, but rather the re-articulation of the same views he has always expressed:

GHEEN: It’s been a pretty rocky weekend for us…We’ve got a website up supporting you if you run for Senate or President. And we have an organization that has a rule against endorsing or supporting any candidate who would support a change in the law to accommodate illegal aliens currently in the United States…you have been a champion for us.

DOBBS: And I remain so. And I remain a champion for rational, effective and humane immigration policies…

You do know that I have never called for the deportation of illegal immigrants in this country. And I still don’t and I’m going to stand up with whomever wants to discuss this issue…William, I hope you’ll join me at the table as we talk about this…William, how bout it?

GHEEN: I can respect you deciding to do that. Me — I don’t think it’s worth our time. I think these [advocacy] groups are enemies of the United States. I think these people are bordering on treason against the people of the United States of America. They support the invasion of this country. They support open border policies that put our people at risk of crime, disease, and terrorism.

Listen:

Dobbs didn’t go as far as to challenge any of Gheen’s disturbing attacks against immigrants and advocates, but he did dedicate a significant amount of time to defending himself. Dobbs insists that he has always encouraged a rational discussion on the issue and has long supported a path to legalization and humane immigration reform as long the borders are secured and immigration controlled. Yet his stance is new to most people’s ears. Latinos aren’t buying it, xenophobes are furiously skeptical, and Dobbs would probably still have his job at CNN if that were the case.

In fact, in 2007 Dobbs proclaimed, “When this president [Bush] and open-borders, illegal-alien-amnesty advocates say, ‘You can’t deport them,’ my answer is, ‘You wanna bet?’ Because this is the United States.” Politifact found no evidence of Lou Dobbs ever saying “point blank” that he opposes a path to legalization, though he “certainly gave the impression that he didn’t much care for it.” He has also accused President Obama of “pandering to the pro-amnesty open-borders lobby,” despite the fact that Obama similarly indicated that there cannot be immigration reform with a path to legalization until the government shows that it is capable of enforcing the laws which are currently in place.

In his Telemundo interview Dobbs also tried to erase the past by claiming that he never said that immigrants are bringing leprosy to the U.S. and attacked host Maria Celeste for bringing up a report from four years ago. However, just two years ago Dobbs did in fact air and defend the leprosy report, affirming “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

Gheen has announced that ALIPAC members are in favor of publicly dropping their support for the “new” Lou Dobbs and disabling websites they have created such as www.LouDobbsforPresident.org.

Middle East Progress has just posted an interview with Sen. George Mitchell, the Obama administration’s Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, in which Mitchell discusses the current state of the peace process and the details of the Netanyahu government’s announcement of a partial settlement freeze.

Mitchell also responded to some criticisms of the administration’s approach to restarting Palestinian-Israeli negotiations:

Q: Critics have said that the administration’s singular focus on a settlement freeze harmed chances of negotiations and put President Abbas out on a limb from which he could not climb off. What was the rationale for this strategy and why has the administration continued to focus on a settlement freeze?

A: A freeze on settlement activity is an Israeli obligation under the Roadmap, and the United States — as well as the Quartet — has long called on all parties to uphold their obligations. We suggested all parties — Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states — take steps to improve the atmosphere for negotiations. These steps can be a valuable contribution to achieving our goal of successful negotiations that result in a two-state solution. They are, however, a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. We have never viewed these steps as pre-conditions to the resumption of negotiations.

As to skepticism over President Obama’s ability to bring the parties to the table for productive negotiations, Mitchell said “There can be no absolute guarantee in advance of negotiations as to what will occur during the course of those negotiations. We must continue to urge, to encourage, and to persuade the leaders on both sides that compromises — difficult though they may be — are in the long-term interests of their people.”

The alternative is to accept endless conflict, never-ending disagreement, and the absence of opportunity for all the people of the region. Of course, not everyone gets everything they want in a negotiation, and there must be a willingness on everyone’s part to give more than they want to give and to accept less than they want to receive. With time, with patience, and with courageous leadership, however, such compromises can be reached for one overriding reason: It is in the best interest of the region’s people—Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs. The next generation should not have to live through what the present leadership has endured, and we are determined that peace can be achieved.

The President and the Secretary of State have been clear about our commitment both to Israel’s security and to the two-state solution based on the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state with contiguous territory. This commitment is unwavering and in the national security interests of the United States.

Read the whole interview here.

Last night on the Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert — in his “35,000″-part series “Better Know A Lobby” — interviewed Joe Cirincione the President of the Ploughshares Fund (“the fighting non-fighters!”), which is devoted to reducing the threat from nuclear weapons. In the segment, Colbert and Cirncione agreed that the U.S. should reduce its nuclear arsenal. Cirincione noted that the world possesses enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several thousand times. Colbert jokingly responded that we need enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet at least once. In doing so, Colbert nailed the insane logic of those opposing reductions in US nuclear arsenals, by pointing out that possessing such a capability is akin to threatening to commit suicide:

COLBERT: Let’s get it down to only being able to destroy the world once, anything above that you’re being greedy. [...]

CIRINCIONE: We don’t even need that. […] Why would you want to have an arsenal that could destroy the planet?

COLBERT: In case somebody else wants to destroy it first. Like maybe somebody we don’t know has developed a bomb that can destroy the world and we say don’t do that or else we’ll do it. See.

CIRINCIONE: That is the logic of the Cold War and it was an insane logic.

COLBERT: It is not an insane logic. Let’s say you want to kill me. You have a gun. I have a gun. Now I could point my gun at you – that’s mutually assured destruction. Okay, now you point your gun at me and I point my gun at my own head. I take away your motivation to kill me.

Colbert also gives one of the best impressions of a nuclear explosion ever — until Cirincione made it “ugly.” Watch it: